Sarah Sanders: God wanted Trump to become president

The following are excerpts from a news report, dated January 31, 2019, under the headline "Sarah Huckabee Sanders claims God wanted Donald Trump to be president" and subheading "Sarah Huckabee Sanders has just come out with a rather eccentric claim about US President Donald Trump".

During an interview earlier today, White House press secretary Sarah Huckabee Sanders claimed the President’s gig was part of a higher calling.

“I think God calls all of us to fill different roles at different times and I think that he wanted Donald Trump to become president,” Ms Sanders told Christian Broadcast Network News. “And that’s why he’s there, and I think he has done a tremendous job in supporting a lot of the things that people of faith really care about."...

Mr Trump identifies as a Christian, and white evangelical voters largely supported his rise to the top job.

According to exiting polling results, 81 per cent of white evangelical Protestants voted for Mr Trump in the 2016 federal election — a higher number than those who voted for George W Bush, John McCain or Mitt Romney.

Today, polling shows they continue to overwhelmingly favour him.

....Mr Trump’s alleged affairs do not seem to have impacted this demographic’s perception of him.

In 2016, a Public Religion Research Institute (PRRI) survey asked whether “an elected official who commits an immoral act in their personal life can still behave ethically and fulfil their duties in their public and professional life”.

In October 2016, shortly after the release of Mr Trump’s infamous “grab ’em by the p***y” tape, 72 per cent of white evangelical Protestants gave the answer: “Yes.”

By contrast, in 2011 under the Obama administration, just 30 per cent of this demographic said so — a trend Slate described as a “retreatment from moral judgment of him”.... (End excerpts)

"What happens when you're confronted with a politician (Trump) who is utterly without shame? You can reveal where he's lied, explain all the facts, and try as hard as you can to inoculate the public against his falsehoods. But by the time you've done that, he has already told 10 more lies." -- Paul Waldman